Miles, George U.

b. March 20, 1796, in St. Marys County, Maryland; d. March 19, 1882, in Petersburg, Illinois. Miles came to Illinois in 1816, settling first in St. Clair County, and then in White County, where he married Jane McCoy on November 18, 1821. They had three children. Miles moved to Logan County, Illinois, and then to Sangamon County, Illinois, in 1836. He lived on a farm six miles north of Springfield, Illinois, where he farmed and raised stock. Miles drove his stock to Chicago, which was the nearest market. In 1839, he moved to Petersburg in Menard County, Illinois, where he served as Public Administrator from July 31, 1845, to February 15, 1849. He was a Whig, and one of two Menard County delegates to the county convention instructed to vote for Lincoln. In 1860, Miles made his living as a farmer in Menard County and owned real estate worth $15,000 and personal property worth $200. His daughter, Anna Miles, was William H. Herndon’s second wife.

Roy P. Basler et al., eds., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), 1:319; The History of Menard and Mason Counties, Illinois (Chicago: O. L. Baskin & Co., 1879), 281, 288, 699; Menard County, Illinois, Eighth Census of the United States, 1860; Rev. R. D. Miller, Past and Present of Menard County, Illinois (Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1905), 525; Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, eds., Herndon’s Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements About Abraham Lincoln (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998), 763.